True Detective Was The Undisputed King Of Crime TV Until Netflix's 2-Part Thriller

Published Jul 23, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT After joining Screen Rant in January 2025, Guy became a Senior Features Writer in March of the same year, and now specializes in features about classic TV shows. With several years' experience writing for and editing TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include a wide range of genres, from comedies, animated series, and crime dramas, to Westerns and political thrillers. When it debuted on HBO in 2014, True Detective changed television. Nic Pizzolatto’s career-defining creation brought cop shows into the age of prestige television with big-name movie stars and cinematic production values, while emphasizing the psychological element of crime investigations. As a result, the series immediately set itself apart from everything else in TV crime. Yet, it was only a matter of time before rival streaming platforms with bigger budgets and even more disruptive approaches to small-screen drama muscled in on what made this project so unique. Just three years after True Detective’s first season, Mindhunter dropped on Netflix, raising the bar for crime television once again. A lavish period retelling of how the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit began to study serial killers, this two-season masterpiece was supervised and co-directed by David Fincher. His work on the acclaimed period thriller movie Zodiac clearly informed Mindhunter’s overall aesthetic, helping to redefine what the perfect crime TV show looks like. While Netflix reaped the artistic rewards of backing Fincher with a record-breaking budget for the small screen, True Detective’s follow-up seasons couldn’t quite live up to the standards set by the show’s debut. Season 2 was a star-studded misstep, while season 3’s return to form was ultimately no match for Mindhunter’s sophomore release. True Detective Became An Instant Crime Classic When It Arrived On HBO Nevertheless, it’s worth remembering just how special True Detective was when it first appeared on our screens. A sumptuous Southern Gothic murder-mystery thriller packed with period details and chiefly characterized by smoldering suspense, it’s a triumph of unorthodox procedural drama different from everything that came before it. True Detective season 1 is an all-round masterpiece, which revolutionized TV crime with its exquisite visuals, narrative depth, and non-linear approach to procedural storytelling. Sadly, the show lost its footing with season 2, which overeggs its bleak stylization of multiple convoluted plot threads, despite compelling lead performances from Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams. Mahershala Ali fronted an excellent third season, which rescued much of True Detective’s credibility. But by then it was already too late. The series had lost its crown as the undisputed king of crime TV to a new Netflix rival, which took up the mantle of auteur storytelling in the genre. Still, the HBO anthology series has more to give. True Detective’s spinoff miniseries Night Country, which effectively serves as a belated season 4, is a fitting tribute to the powerfully evocative production of the show’s first season, albeit in a completely different setting. Jodie Foster is characteristically magnificent as the spinoff’s central protagonist, an Alaskan police chief forced to hunt down a serial killer in the pitch-black of a polar night. With season 5 on the way in 2027, True Detective is still going strong, and appears to have long outlasted Netflix’s Mindhunter. Mindhunter Is An Even Better Psychological Crime Thriller Than True Detective Although David Fincher’s depiction of the FBI’s psychological profiling of serial killers proved too costly to continue, it was fun while it lasted. Mindhunter is Netflix’s best psychological crime thriller, and is in contention to be the greatest TV show in the history of its genre. Spanning just two seasons and 19 episodes, the series explores the nature of homicide in ways no other work of television or film has done, before or since. Rather than focusing on local police detectives like most police procedurals, including True Detective, Mindhunter instead follows the journeys of two FBI agents across the country in search of broader answers to bigger questions. Yet, there’s still plenty of time for specific murder cases. More importantly, there are some profoundly disturbing scenes in which convicted serial killers describe their actions in graphic detail. Mindhunter can be just as grisly as True Detective at its darkest, but it’s also even more polished as a masterclass in slow-burning crime drama. True Detective 8/10 Release Date January 12, 2014 Network HBO Max True Detective is an anthology series exploring intricate criminal investigations through multiple timelines. Each season examines dark personal and professional secrets revealed during the course of solving complex cases, highlighting the impact of crime on individuals both within and outside the law enforcement community. Mindhunter 10/10 Release Date 2017 - 2019 Network Netflix Based on the true history of the FBI's expansion of serial killer investigation, Netflix crime thriller series Manhunter is set in the late 1970s, following agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench as they develop criminal profiling techniques. The two delve intimately into the psyches of incarcerated serial killers to hopefully understand and catch notorious criminals like them.